Volunteering abroad that doesn't involve clueless teenagers teaching their non-existent skills?

[SirChenjins]

And I include my cherub in that.

DS is 18, lovely, but has no discernible skills other than a qualification in refereeing and a few school qualifications. Unsure of what he wants to do next, but he's been talking about doing some volunteering. I want to avoid the usual 'm/c kid picks up hammer for the first time to build a school in Africa despite knowing nothing about building' type thing as I believe it's far better to fund local tradespeople or workers to work on these projects.

Is there such an initiative which is organised and which places young people in projects that are sustainable and don't take jobs or funds from local communities?

There is always a need in volunteers in local youth clubs especially those for disabled children/ young people. You don’t need many special skills, you are basically just keep company and play games with disabled young people.

Workaway looks amazing!! I should be wfh but I've been planning my escape instead.

My son volunteered at a local school for kids with SEND. The kids loved him as not many young men working there, well none actually. Not much time to organise it though.

My dd and her bf did this in the first summer of Uni
Gotoco - FUNDED and FREE TEFL Adventures overseas

It was brilliant, they were flown over and given a week's training and then posted to a remote north eastern town in Isaan Province in Thailand. They taught in different schools and were followed around and photographed and invited to everyone's homes and taken on amazing trips, they learned Muay Thai in the evenings and did a few long weekend trips to places like Chiang Mai (10 hours on the coach). They came back about 3 years more grown up!

If you are looking for something for the summer they have these shorter ones
Thailand Teacher Training Programme (Short-term) | Gotoco (this is the one they did)
Vietnam Teacher Training Programme (Short-term) | Gotoco
China TEFL Summer Camps | Gotoco

You have to pay for your flight upfront IIRC but they refund it at the end, they pay you a stipend while you are there which they said was plenty. It would be more fun to do with a friend as where they were there was very little English spoken but they got by fine, there were about 4 of them in their town.

How about volunteering at some kind of animal sanctuary would probably mostly entail shovelling shit for a few weeks, which even the most clueless of middle-class idiot teenagers could do.

A friend of my DD volunteered as a soccer coach in a prison in Argentina this year (aged 19) which I do think was worthwhile. He is quite a tough cookie. But otherwise I agree with your concerns.

Just be a bit discriminatory. A lot of these are rich kids working for free doing jobs which would otherwise be appreciated by the local population.

About | European Youth Portal

my DS did a year post Uni on a variety of these projects and had an amazing time. He volunteered in Greece, Croatia, Finland, Italy, Sicily, Rome, Paris, Tuscany and many others.

My DS has dual nationality so no issues with UK passport restrictions, but some projects you can get round the 90 day issue.

The projects fund travel and food for volunteers.

Project Trust is exactly what the OP is trying to avoid. They send teenagers with no experience or particular qualifications to basically do a gap year. You do a selection course on the Isle of Mull first and then get sent off to "help" overseas. You also have to raise around £3,000 to go.

Look at the residential volunteering opportunities in the UK - if he took a spot at Loch Lomond or the Cairngorms he could have the fun of figuring out how to travel there by train/bus.

https://volunteer.rspb.org.uk/residential-opportunities#date=&flexibility=7&display=grid&s=date_advertised&o=desc&willing_to_share=true&type=any

Or, a paid job with some residential aspect - this one is at St Andrews, you basically work like a dog for the whole summer in servitude to wealthy foreign students for no thanks and little reward. A great antidote to mc privilege and almost guaranteed to be a culture shock.

uk.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=8401e4019e8937c5&from=serp&mclk=default&xpse=SoAm67I3wgwhSe23XZ0LbzkdCdPP&xfps=adaae5b6-36bd-4cd7-80e7-21fff8e2c45c&xkcb=SoC567M3wgwbMMRYT50EbzkdCdPP

Thanks so much everyone - a lot to look at and sift through 😊

I absolutely want to avoid sending my m/c young adult out into the world to take a job from a local person just because we have £ in our pocket, but I would like him to have experience of travelling by himself to somewhere that's outwith our local region. A bit of getting out of his comfort zone will do him good.

Read the post from the person who has been a volunteer with them.

DS is not a trained teacher. But he is a native speaker of English and therefore better placed to give language conversation classes than a non-native speaker local. He’s therefore not taking their jobs - he’s providing additional opportunities to students in foreign schools which they wouldn’t be getting otherwise. It’s nothing like going to some random place in Africa/Asia for 3 weeks to build something. He has to raise much more than £3k but flights, visas, health insurance and local support 24/7 isn’t free.

Would we allow an un-checked 18 year old Nigerian (for example) to take a class over here? If not, then why is the reverse appropriate.

No they certainly don’t, they want people with measurable, useful skills and experience who are able to offer more than a couple of weeks of dabbling and taking photos for Instagram.

I think if you look hard , but probably not too hard, then it is very likely that even within your local region there are opportunities to get him out of his comfort zone. There is no reason why he can’t plan to do both, some independent travelling and some volunteering in an area that needs some support, even though it might not be as glamorous as travelling abroad.

A weeks training, then they were “ followed around, photographed, and invited to everyone’s homes”. So what were they teaching? Social media skills, how to take a good selfie?

They now have to raise funds to go.
I did a scheme similar to you after university and my criterion was nothing I had to raise money to do, though some other schemes have changed in the umpty ump years since I graduated.

If they were teaching Igbo then yes, we probably would. The volunteers all have an international child protection check which is like a DBS.

The last line of the post was this: “Project’s mission as a charity is about the development of the young people they send as volunteers.”

so not about benefiting the people they’re trying to help but developing the skills of the volunteers.

I think Camp America is the best bet with his skills. He’ll get the overseas experience and you won’t have to feel queasy that he’s exploiting people to boost his CV

Sorry, I was rushing off and didn't explain properly

They both had experience of tutoring, DD worked for Explore Learning for years and was an English Tutor, she had A* English A level and was studying English. Her bf had similar and had worked summers in camps.

They all met up with the many others who were doing the programme and had a week in the classroom. They were teaching basic English to Primary School children so it was more about the TEFL method than anything.

When they got to the remote town it appeared no one had ever seen anyone with blonde hair and blue eyes, so they found it very fun that everywhere they went people wanted to talk to them (via google translate usually!) and have photos with them. All the staff at the schools invited them to their houses for dinner with their families, they were taken out by the head teacher on a day long tour of the area etc. They taught in the mornings and then did football in English in the afternoons as well as other sports. (bf was also a football coach)

They had an absolutely amazing time, also both went on school trips with the kids and got involved in all sorts of cultural celebrations a la world book day but Thai versions.
They were there 6 weeks then met up again in Hoi An where it all began and had debrief/parties etc

Not necessarily abroad - outwith our local region. I'd like him to have experience of travelling somewhere that he can't commute to so that he can live independently, ie other parts of Scotland (where we live) and the rest of the UK, as well as abroad if possible. He probably won't be going to uni so won't have the opportunity to have semesters abroad, it'll be a different experience for him.

It might be possible to combine some volunteering with house/ pet sitting and WWOOF stays to make a travel itinerary. I have used https://www.helpx.net/ as well.

I'm not sure if it helps but when GS was doing gold dofe there was a site with all sorts of opportunities for their residential, some volunteering and some you paid for. Not sure if you can access it but you might if you Google it. Some nice things like buddying up with disabled children on summer camps, doing up youth hostels, all sorts of sports stuff. Might be worth a look, they weren't all specifically for dofe from what I remember.